{"id":5925,"date":"2013-07-28T10:16:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T14:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=5925"},"modified":"2013-07-28T10:16:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-28T14:16:30","slug":"imf-guilty-of-aggravated-pimping-of-third-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/28\/imf-guilty-of-aggravated-pimping-of-third-world\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF Guilty of “Aggravated Pimping” of Third World?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NoIMF\"<\/a>Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been charged with \u201caggravated pimping<\/a>\u201d by the French government.<\/p>\n

I thought “aggravated pimping” was the job description for the IMF \u00a0– at least in its function as a bill collector for the banks.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it is simply screwing the Third World after invoking the proper econometric formulas (with a few multipliers thrown in for gloss).<\/p>\n

Here’s a piece on \u00a0the IMF I wrote shortly after Obama took power:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY<\/a>\u00a0June 11, 2009<\/p>\n

U.S. Bailout Of Tinhorn Dictators Sacrifices Taxpayers On IMF Altar<\/strong>
\nBy JAMES BOVARD<\/p>\n

The Obama administration wants to pledge $100 billion in U.S. taxpayers\u2019 money to the International Monetary Fund. This provision is included in an appropriations bill containing supplemental funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Luckily, many Republicans and Democrats are vigorously opposing Obama\u2019s effort to sacrifice American taxpayers on an IMF altar.<\/p>\n

The IMF is currently bailing out some of the world\u2019s most corrupt regimes. Instead of curing the global downturn, giving the IMF more resources will guarantee more instability, more oppression and bigger losses in the future.<\/p>\n

The IMF was created in 1944 to shore up currencies and help nations with temporary balance-of-payment problems. In the decades since the IMF\u2019s founding, global capital markets and fluctuating currency exchange rates have made the IMF a relic. But too many people have gotten rich from IMF largesse to permit the curtain to be closed on this institution.<\/p>\n

Actually, the IMF has accomplished many things private markets never could. During the 1970s and 1980s, the IMF was a cheerleader for Third World countries and some communist regimes. The surge in Western lending to such countries helped cause the great debt crisis of the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

Treasury Secretary Paul O\u2019Neill denounced the IMF and the World Bank in 2002 for driving many poor nations \u201cinto a ditch\u201d with excessive lending that governments wasted.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Obama team believes the IMF deserves far more money and power, tripling its war chest to $750 billion from $250 billion.<\/p>\n

The U.S. government contributes roughly 20% of the IMF\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

IMF resources are being squandered. Consider some recent bailouts of floundering regimes:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The IMF just approved a $116 million loan for the government of Tajikistan \u2014 even though that government admitted last year that it had brazenly lied to secure previous IMF loans.<\/p>\n

\u2022 On May 29, the IMF approved a $209 million loan to the government of Kenya \u2014 despite previous perennial IMF complaints about pervasive corruption in that country.<\/p>\n

\u2022 In January, the IMF approved a $2.5 billion loan for the government of Belarus \u2014 one of the most oppressive regimes in Europe, and one that retains many Soviet-style economic policies.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Ethiopian government received a $50 million loan in January despite its recent brutal oppression of political opposition.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Democratic Republic of the Congo will receive $195 million from the IMF \u2014 even though that government is rated by Transparency International as one of the 10 most corrupt regimes in the world.<\/p>\n

IMF aid allows politicians to entrench themselves and scorn their own people. IMF loans to bad governments are \u201codious debts\u201d for the people in those nations. The downtrodden masses will be taxed to repay loans that their rulers pocketed, squandered, or used to tighten their fetters.<\/p>\n

IMF supporters insist that any increased aid will be used well because the IMF will impose strict conditions on how governments use the largesse. But IMF conditionality is one of the biggest frauds on the international landscape.<\/p>\n

Foreign governments continue getting windfalls regardless of how they betray their reform pledges to the IMF. And the IMF often pressures governments to adapt foolish policies that sacrifice the private sector to maximize government revenue.<\/p>\n

While Obama proclaimed his devotion to \u201ctransparency\u201d in government, the IMF is a secretive organization. The U.S. will be committing $100 billion to a giant black box \u2014 and average Americans will never know who reaped the profit of their sacrifice.<\/p>\n

The Obama team wants to bloat the IMF in part because it believes that government spending is the magic bullet against the current economic downturn. Supposedly, American taxpayers will benefit from government waste anywhere in the world. But it makes no sense to increase the U.S. budget deficit to allow foreign governments to shovel out more money for every scam under the sun.<\/p>\n

Vastly expanding the IMF will make U.S. taxpayers liable for the mistakes and abuses of tinhorn dictators all around the world. Instead of plowing in another $100 billion, the U.S. government should pull the plug on its involvement in the IMF.<\/p>\n

Permitting politicians to spend willy-nilly is a fool\u2019s recipe for prosperity.<\/p>\n

Tagline; Bovard is a former World Bank consultant and the author of \u201cAttention Deficit Democracy\u201d (Palgrave, 2006) and eight other books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been charged with \u201caggravated pimping\u201d by the French government. I thought “aggravated pimping” was the job description for the IMF \u00a0– at least in its function as a bill collector for the banks. Or maybe it is simply screwing the Third World after invoking the proper econometric formulas (with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[274,211,164,27,38,170,279,151],"class_list":["post-5925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-buffoonery","tag-foreign-aid-2","tag-leviathan","tag-lying","tag-obama","tag-sovereign-immunity","tag-tyranny-2","tag-waste"],"yoast_head":"\nIMF Guilty of "Aggravated Pimping" of Third World? - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/28\/imf-guilty-of-aggravated-pimping-of-third-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"IMF Guilty of "Aggravated Pimping" of Third World? - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been charged with \u201caggravated pimping\u201d by the French government. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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